Nasia Palaios - Artist Bio/Statement

Working predominantly through ceramics, Nasia Palaios is a teaching artist who utilizes common wheel throwing, hand building, and slip casting ceramic techniques, in combination with other interests in photography, screen printing, and illustration. She often creates both functional and nonfunctional, installation work. As an artist, she seeks to explore her own nostalgia of her familial ties in order to reconnect with her Greek and Mexican ancestors, as well as their past ceramic practices.

Nasia is based in Bethlehem and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as she balances her creative and teaching practices in both cities. She obtained her BFA in ceramics with a teaching concentration from Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture. In April of 2025, she won PAEA's student artist of the month for higher education. She also studied darkroom photography abroad for two months in Rome, Italy at Temple University Rome. Nasia has been featured in three group exhibitions at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Philadelphia, PA (2023, 2024) and has had one solo exhibition "Take Me With You," (2024) at Tyler as well.

Ceramics has always been about connection– to the earth from which materials are harvested from, the wheel that I work on, and the community ceramics fosters. Individually, my strongest connection has been to my familial roots that stem from Chios, Greece and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. In response, my work continuously reflects this connection as I find comfort in the wonder and nostalgia of everything that brought us to where we are today.

Through my work, I reconnect with and honor all those who came before me. In some ways, that means going back to the beginning, by investigating the everyday aspects of ceramics, as both sides of my ancestors practiced. I analyze the processes, materials, forms, and purpose of the pottery and ceramics from Chios and San Louis Potosi. I attempt to bridge the gap between them and myself. Yet, in other ways, that looks like honoring their principles in my own ways. I make careful choices in my work, whether that be in adjustments/alterations of imagery, form, materials, or function. I often question what is important to me, my family, and what brought us here. My work pushes what it means to work with ceramics by incorporating my other artistic interests such as screen printing, mold making, and installation work.

I continuously find myself reaching back, trying to pick up the pieces, attempting to put them together, and investigating new ways to look at them. I know I’ll never have the full image, but there's something in me that pushes me to try. I want to learn if I can. I want to honor, and respect, and pass all this knowledge and memory down. I want reconnection.